


Someone Like You

by sunsetmog



Category: What's Your Number? (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ally and Colin find a way through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Like You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaeveBran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/gifts).



> Beta by the lovely M. 
> 
> Happy holidays, MaeveBran!

Ally woke up to the smell of bacon frying, and Colin singing an off-key rendition of _Club Can't Handle Me_ in her kitchen. 

She slipped out of bed, grabbing Colin's shirt from where it was hanging over her closet door as she walked by. She pulled it on as she wandered sleepily into the kitchen, leaning into Colin's side as she peered into the pans. 

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, reaching past her for a piece of toast. "Morning."

"Morning." 

Colin grinned down at her, mouth full of toast and making no attempt to hide it. 

He was so gross. She loved him. 

"Isn't it dangerous to fry bacon naked?" Ally asked, sliding her hands around Colin's waist once she'd figured out that what was on the stove was one empty frying pan and another full of bacon. She rubbed her nose against his rib cage. She liked the way he smelled in the morning, sleep-sweet and familiar. 

Mixed with the smell of the bacon cooking, it was pretty perfect. 

"I'm wearing an apron," Colin told her, but considering the apron he was wearing was a) Ally's and b) part of a French maid's uniform that Ally had once bought to excite Rick (or Simon. Thinking about it, it was probably Simon, England was totally close to France) it wasn't exactly going to be that much of a barrier against any stray hot fat. "Nice apron, by the way."

"Thanks," Ally said. "Hang on, where did you even find that?"

"In that suitcase on top of your closet," Colin said with a shit-eating grin. Ally sometimes thought that some of Colin's detective skills should be put to a better use than just upending her apartment whenever she wasn't looking. Although she would never have found out about that dude with the dog downstairs if he'd hidden his detective skills away, so she thought it was a win overall. He was her very own Veronica Mars, but less persnickety. "Some of those outfits are really weird."

"That's why they're hidden in a suitcase," Ally pointed out. "Blame Rick. He liked it when I pretended to be a militant recycler. Or Disgusting Donald. He liked some really weird stuff."

"Hence the name," Colin made a face. "The one outfit with the thing? And the one—"

Ally knew which one he meant. "I'm getting rid of that one," she said quickly. After Rick she still felt bad throwing stuff in the trash, but she was pretty sure Goodwill didn't want anything crotchless. "Nice hair, by the way."

Colin put a hand up to his head. Last night they'd shared a six pack of beers, watching endless episodes of The Office on Netflix. One thing had led to another and Ally had found herself styling Colin's hair into a stegosaurus-like mohawk, complete with pretty much all of her hairspray and a good proportion of last Halloween's spray-in pink hair dye. She'd blame the beer, but she was pretty sure it was exactly the kind of thing that both of them would have done sober too. 

On the other hand, it was nice to know just how firm her firm hold hairspray was, too, because Colin had slept on it and his mohawk still looked perfect, if a little less pink than it had the night before. She suspected that her pillow might be a little pinker than it was supposed to be this morning. 

"Awesome," he said with a grin, ducking down to cup her cheek then tilting her chin up with his thumb. He was still poking at his hair with his other hand. "Morning, gorgeous," he said again, kissing her. 

"I haven't brushed my teeth," Ally complained, just like always, but Colin shrugged and told her he liked the way she tasted. Part of her couldn't exactly believe that, but he always tugged her closer when she tried to excuse herself to the bathroom, so she'd sort of started to accept that he was telling the truth. 

"And I don't care." He licked at her mouth in a deliberately gross kind of a way. She really fucking loved him. "I'm making pancakes and bacon."

"Breakfast of champions," she said. She buttoned up a couple of buttons on the shirt she was wearing, but it was still mostly indecent. She hoped the apartments across the street liked a show. They should, because she and Colin were pretty bad at remembering to tug the blinds closed. Mostly they were just hanging out in their underwear in front of the TV, but whatever. The way the shirt kept falling off once shoulder just kind of made her feel sexy, especially when Colin just pulled her even closer, spatula still in hand, and kissed her again. 

"And after breakfast," Colin said, "I figured we could spend the rest of the morning drinking coffee naked, and then hang out in the Common or something this afternoon. Get a giant pretzel. You know."

"Okay," Ally said. It was Sunday, and neither of them ever had that many plans on a Sunday, and both of them loved that pretzel stand. They sometimes saw Daisy and Eddie on Saturdays, or hung out with Colin's band or did chores. Sundays were just lazy, and theirs, and they mostly cooked and ate and wandered around the city in the sunshine. Or stayed at home in their underwear, but either way Sundays were pretty awesome. 

Ally had been in enough relationships in her life to know that this kind of honeymoon couldn't last, and a part of her was waiting for the other shoe to drop. While everything was good, though, she was just going to let it ride. She went to the cupboard to get mugs out for the coffee that was in the coffee pot, grabbing the sugar and putting it on the table. Colin passed her the plate of pancakes from where he'd kept them warm at the back of the stove, expertly holding it over her head as she ducked under his arm. 

They were an odd kind of a pair, sometimes, but Ally wouldn't swap it for anything. 

"Hey," she said, as Colin brought the pan over to the table to push bacon onto each of their plates with the edge of his spatula. "I picked up those pamphlets from the community college. For the art classes."

"Awesome," Colin said, not quite meeting her eyes. 

Ally pretended not to notice. She'd gotten a pretty crappy job as a researcher at a firm in the city, but it was only part time so that she could devote the rest of her time to her funny little models. She still called them that in her head even though recently they'd sort of turned into something more than that. Half of the week she sat at her desk in the corner of her apartment and worked on them, but recently she'd started to think that it might be fun to take some art classes at the community college. She already had a degree—in English literature and management, which was possibly the most useless college experience she could have had, bearing in mind what she liked to do. Her mom had her college diploma framed in the hallway at home, and if Ally was still going to be paying off her student loans in seventy-five years' time, then at least her mom would be appeased that her eldest daughter hadn't been what she considered a total screw up. 

Ally's mom still hadn't forgiven Ally for choosing Colin over Jake Adams. Daisy figured that it was just a matter of time until she came around, but Ally's mom could hold a grudge like no one else. Ally's dad, however, had turned out to be more accepting than not, and she and Colin had spent more than one weird Saturday hanging out with him and his girlfriend. Colin was twitter friends with them both, but it would be a cold day in hell before Ally started tweeting, so she relied on Colin to keep her updated. 

"There looks like there are a couple of classes I could take," she went on, trying not to notice the way that Colin was looking down at his plate instead of at her. "Hey," she said finally. "I thought we talked about this. Aren't you okay with it?"

He looked at her like she might be crazy. "Ally, of course I'm okay with this. And even if I wasn't okay with it, it would still be your choice, and you wouldn't have to answer to your asshole boyfriend for what you wanted to do with your life."

Sometimes Colin surprised Ally. "What is it then?" she persisted. "Because you're being weird. And not weird in a _I broke something of yours and I haven't told you yet_ kind of a way."

"That vase was ugly," Colin said. "You hated it. And I apologized on Twitter."

"Well," Ally said. "Yes. But come on, spill it. You're still being weird."

"You remember when we were talking about what I wanted to do with my life?"

Ally remembered. They'd had a few conversations in a similar vein lately. Maybe it was just Ally turning everything upside down and having a shitty job and talking about going back to college, but during the last couple of weeks they'd talked about it a lot, come to think about it. Up to and including last night, she realized, remembering Colin with his head in her lap as they'd talked. 

"You want to be in a band," Ally said. "And not the Bar Mitzvah kind of a band."

Colin concentrated on cutting up his pancakes into smaller pieces. 

"Colin," Ally said. 

"What if I said, um, that I didn't want to do that any more."

Ally made a face. "Seriously? But haven't you always wanted to be in a band? Isn't this your life's dream, or something?" Ally hadn't had the opportunity to meet either of Colin's parents, but what she did know of them was this: Colin's dad was a cop, and Colin's brother was a cop, and Colin's mom was a teacher. 

Colin was not a cop; Colin played guitar and supplemented his income doing this and that. It was why he was living in the apartment that he was, and his brother and his wife had a place out in Needham, with two children and another on the way. Colin was the kind of disappointment that no one tried to put a name to. 

"Was," Colin said. He shrugged. "I was thinking, though. And I lit up your awesome dioramas."

"You fused my bathroom," Ally pointed out. She didn't say that it was pretty much the nicest thing that anybody had ever done for her. Under the table she curled her foot around his, rubbing her toes over his ankle. 

Meeting her eyes, he smiled lopsidedly. His eyes were bright. She really loved him. 

"How would you feel if I learned how to light things without fusing your bathroom?" 

"Like—" she started. 

"Like if I looked to see if there were any classes at the community college about learning to be an electrician, or something."

Ally raised her eyebrows. "Really?" she said. This was a surprise; the whole time she'd known Colin he'd been a musician. A total ladies' man, and a musician. He was funny and smart and hot and hers, and never had she once considered him going to technical college. 

"You need to be certified by the state," Colin said. "Once you're done with the classes. I looked it up."

Ally bit her lip, nodding. 

"Say something," Colin said finally. "Come on. Are you going to break up with me for wanting to be an electrician?"

"Do you get your own tool belt?" she said. "I could get behind that." He was still wearing his frilly apron, and she knew he should look stupid and ridiculous, but to her he just looked hot. And hers. 

"You've got your own tool belt," he pointed out. "I've been in your suitcase, don't forget. What were you even dressed up as?"

"Sexy photocopier girl," Ally said. "I fixed photocopiers. In my tool belt."

"Sexy," Colin said. "You think they have electrician classes in your pamphlets?"

"Maybe," Ally said. "We might have to go get more." She took a big bite of pancakes and maple syrup and bacon. It was delicious, and she couldn't help but groan through the mouthful as Colin watched her. This was perfect, she thought. Breakfast, and a future, and the two of them together. 

—///—

They walked through the Common in the afternoon, Ally wearing her brand new flip-flops. They were orange with a flower on the front, and they were kind of ridiculous. Ally loved them. Every time Colin saw them, he snorted with laughter. 

"They're awesome, shut up," Ally said, for about the hundredth time. 

"They really are," Colin said, and held his hand up to make a stop by the side of the path to get a carton of freshly made doughnuts, the sugar going everywhere as he fumbled the carton with his wallet to get a couple of bills out and pass them over the counter. Ally grabbed them a couple of bottles of Cokes, handing over a ten-dollar bill and hanging around for the change as Colin went to sit down on the grass opposite. They hadn't seen a doughnut vendor here before. 

She sank down next to him on the hill, sliding her feet out of her flip flops. Next to her, Colin echoed her, kicking off his flip flops and lying back on the grass, hands behind his head. Even in his sunglasses, Ally knew that his eyes would be smiling too. 

"I got you Coke," she said, handing over one of the bottles. 

"I got you doughnuts," he said. "Hey, isn't this where we saw the puppet guy?"

Ally shuddered. "Don't remind me," she said. "He was super creepy even when we were kids."

"And you had sex with him," Colin reminded her. 

Ally rolled her eyes. "It was a poor life choice, okay. Shut up and pass me a doughnut."

Colin was still laughing even as she bit into the still-hot doughnut. 

She curled her fingers into his, soft and slow. He squeezed her hand and took a bite of his doughnut, sitting up so that he could try and fit his feet into her orange, flowery flip flops. 

Ally dissolved into laughter. 

"Not my color?" Colin asked. "I like the flower, personally."

"You can absolutely keep them," Ally said. She leaned in to rest her cheek against Colin's shoulder. It felt pretty amazing to sit here in the sunshine with him. 

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, leaving a dusting of sugar over her skin. 

_Yeah_ , she thought, and grinned. 

—//—

When Ally got in from work, she found Colin lying on her couch, reading one of the magazines that Daisy had left the previous weekend. Ally was perpetually broke at the moment, her apartment costing her money that she didn't make back in her shitty research assistant job. She had to buy materials for her models too, and that didn't come cheap. Her dad helped her out when he could, but she was still spending more than she earned. She made a crappy adult, sometimes, but she'd done the right thing and stopped buying magazines to save some cash. Daisy just passed over her old ones instead, which meant that a) Ally always had something new to read, and b) she had more cash in her wallet, so long as she didn't mind getting her gossip two or three weeks late. Ally didn't really care; she didn't read all that many of them anyway. She usually kept them in the bathroom by the toilet. 

"Hey," Colin said. "This article's all about whether it's naïve or enlightened to date a bisexual man."

"Bullshit," Ally said, dumping her cardigan and her purse on her computer chair and slipping off her ballet flats. "I call bullshit. Beer?"

"Always," Colin said, still holding the magazine over his head as he read. "Listen to this: 'Maybe you've heard the joke? A man who says he's bisexual is gay, straight, or lying.'"

"Still call bullshit," Ally said, peering in the fridge. "Are you going to break up with me if I suggest we have huevos rancheros for dinner?"

"Breakfast food is good for all meals, I think," Colin said. He sounded a bit weird though, so Ally came and leaned over the back of the couch, pushing the magazine away so that she could duck down and kiss him hello. 

"Hard day at the sharp edge?" she asked. 

Colin took the beers she was holding, putting them on the floor before hoisting her over the back of the couch to land with an oomph in his lap. He ran his hands over her hips as she leaned over to kiss him hello. "Signed up for some classes," he said. "Did a shift in Tommy's sandwich place. I brought us sandwiches, but I ate them."

"Bastard," Ally said easily, rolling her hips down against his. She loved the way they fitted together so easily, like two pieces of the same puzzle. "What were you reading?"

"Some bullshit article," he said, hands still on her ass. "You slept with a girl, right? That makes you bisexual. You think dating you makes me enlightened?"

She pursed her lips. "It could just make me a straight girl who slept with another girl," she said, remembering kissing Julie.

"Does it, though?" 

Ally made a face. "No," she said. "It makes me a bi girl who's only slept with one other girl."

"Yeah," Colin said, and Ally narrowed her eyes. 

"Out with it," she said. She knew enough about him now to know when he was thinking something over that it would be better to just say out loud. 

"It's a stupid article," Colin said finally. 

"Yes," Ally agreed. She had learned enough from magazine articles recently to know that they were all bullshit, and the only moral compass you should answer to was your own. "Is this you coming out to me?" She'd never considered the possibility that Colin might be anything other than straight, but he was behaving weirdly, and she knew from first-hand experience that there was nothing like a badly structured magazine article to throw you off center. Anyway, it fitted. Colin loved people, all of them, as many as he could meet. It actually made a weird kind of sense for him to be bisexual. 

Colin shifted on the couch, one arm behind his head. "Theoretically?" he said after a while. He tried to grin. "Does that make you naïve or enlightened?"

"It makes me in love with you," Ally said, after a long moment. "And that article is bullshit."

"Yeah," Colin said, and Ally crawled further into his arms and let him hold on for a while. The huevos rancheros could wait for a while. 

—//—

"What band is this again?" Ally asked. She'd barely had time to get in from work and get changed into jeans and flats before they were leaving the apartment again, Colin dragging her to see a band he loved, early because he wanted to see every second of the openers. 

"Fun.," Colin said, again. "How can you not have heard of them?"

"Because for the last six months I've had Guns and Roses' Greatest Hits on my iPod and virtually nothing else," she pointed out. 

"I didn't hide your iPod cord," Colin said, holding his hands up, and Colin didn't lie, which meant that Ally had put it down somewhere and lost it, which didn't actually happen all that often. And now she had a new found appreciation for Axl Rose, which she hadn't had last New Year's Eve. She really had to remember to buy a new iPod cord. It was a pain in the ass that Colin had this whole anti-Apple stance that extended past a Macbook and into iPods, because it meant that he didn't have one she could steal. She suspected she wasn't going to be getting an iPad for her birthday this year either—not that she actually wanted one, but so far this year, Daisy, her mom, her dad, and her dad's girlfriend had all got one, so Ally felt a little bit like she was left in the twentieth century and couldn't catch up. 

They went to a bar opposite the venue, drinking mojitos in glasses the size of their heads, and eating Buffalo wings covered in a sticky Jack Daniels glaze. They were fucking awesome, and Ally made Colin promise they could come back after the show and have actual food instead of rushing off to catch the openers for a band that Ally had never even heard of. 

It turned out that Colin wasn't just a casual fan, he was A Fan, the kind that knew every single word of every song and sung every single one of them as loud as he could, fist in the air. 

It was, Ally quickly realized, charming. Equally as charming as the band, who were hipster boys with bare ankles and a propensity for suspenders, who jumped all over the stage and sounded a lot like they were in a recording studio, the vocal quality was so good. Ally was impressed, and not just because she knew that she recognized at least one of the songs from the radio or from when they went shopping. 

Half way through, Colin leaned over and yelled in her ear, "Best night ever, yeah?" and all Ally could do was nod and press herself to his hot, sticky, sweaty side. She could barely see, being so small, but the atmosphere had snuck its way under her skin, catching her in its enthusiasm and its heat. 

Afterwards, she dragged him to the merch table and joined the line to buy them both t-shirts while Colin went to the bathroom. She picked out shirts with _it's all Fun. and gay until somebody loses their rights_ on them, and bought two. She waited for him in the hallway and held up the shirt for him to see as he came out of the bathroom, still doing up his fly. 

"Do that before you come out," she rolled her eyes, nudging him in the side. "No one wants to accidentally see your junk."

"Sure they do," he nudged her back, grinning. "You do."

She couldn't help but grin back. She really did. "I got you a t-shirt," she said, and held it out for him to take. 

For a moment, his eyes were unreadable, but then he pulled it on over his head, over the top of his current shirt. "How's it look?"

"Perfect," she said, and she did the same with hers, pulling it on over the top of her shirt. "How'd I look?"

"His and hers' shirts," he said. "Your mom would probably like it."

Maybe not these shirts, she thought, but she smiled instead, hooking her hand through his. "Let's go and get burgers," she said. "Burgers and beer and a stack of onion rings."

"You read my mind," he said, but he didn't start to make his way towards the exit, choosing to press her back against the wall instead, hand in her hair. "Love you," he said in a low voice, and covered her mouth with his own. 

Ally curled her hands in his shirt, and kissed him back. 

—//—

Daisy came over on a Saturday morning, so close to giving birth that Ally was half convinced she was in labor already, puffing away as she knocked on the door. "You need an apartment lower down the building," she said, pushing past Ally and collapsing on the couch, puffy ankles resting on the arm. "Where's Colin?"

"In his apartment," Ally said, since the two of them didn't actually live together. 

Daisy rolled her eyes. "I love you, big sister," she said, "but the two of you are so dumb. Why aren't you living together?"

It was a good point, but Ally hadn't exactly considered the possibility. "We're good," she said, but it was blatantly clear that both she and Colin were broke. She'd signed up for art classes, and the registration fee itself had wiped out her savings. Living together and halving the bills would be a _big_ help.

"Just don't move into his place," Daisy said. "Yours is much nicer."

"And more expensive," Ally pointed out. 

"My point is made," Daisy said, sounding tired. "Rub my feet, Ally, please. I can't even put my socks on anymore. Being pregnant sucks."

"I'll make you tea," Ally said. "And I'll give you a foot rub, how's that sound? I could even do your nails."

"Being pregnant sucks," Daisy said again. She rubbed her stomach in a way which made it abundantly clear that she in no way actually believed that. She had the soft, secret kind of smile that Ally had seen on her face all the way through this pregnancy. She and Eddie were having a baby girl, and it was less than ten days until the due date. 

Ally was going to be an aunt, and she couldn't wait. 

"Soon," Ally said, going over to the tea kettle on the stove. "I have, um—peach tea or peppermint."

"Tequila," Daisy said. "Vodka. A martini. Something with an umbrella in it and a smell that'll strip paint off the walls."

Ally put the burner on to heat the water. "Soon," she said again, coming over to the couch so she could help Daisy off with her shoes. She was good at foot rubs, and she wasn't grossed out by feet. She'd always liked Daisy's, anyway. "Do you want coral pink or something with a shimmer?"

"Shimmer," Daisy said. She wiggled her toes, and Ally pressed her thumb to the instep. "Thanks, Ally."

"No problem," Ally said. She really did like massaging people's feet. 

—//—

"Daisy had an idea," Ally said, unlocking Colin's door and letting herself in. "Wow, do you ever get dressed?"

Colin grinned at her. He was making tea in the nude. "Hey, babe."

"Still naked," Ally cocked her head to one side. "Um. You got a tattoo."

"Yep," Colin said, shifting so that she could see his hip, and the saran wrap taped over it. 

"What's it say?" She bent over to take a closer look, but the ink was leaking a bit so she couldn't be sure. 

"6c."

The lump in Ally's throat got a little thicker. "Oh." 

"I figured, you know. I've learnt a lot recently. Thought I'd commemorate it." He shrugged awkwardly. "It's not like—I mean. It's not your name or anything, but—"

"I would have gone with you," she said. "If you'd told me." She straightened up, and let Colin wrap an arm around her shoulders. 

"Do you want tea?"

"Always," Ally said. "So, uh, Daisy suggested that we move in together. I don't know if you think that's too serious or—"

Colin wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet. She laughed. 

"Not too serious," he said, rubbing his nose against hers. She wrapped her legs around his waist and let herself be kissed. 

"Is that a yes?" 

"It's a yes," Colin agreed. "It's a fuck, yes. Fuck the tea, let's go to bed."

"This is why I love you."

"Oh, and I bought us a mini-fridge. I put it by the bed and filled it with beer."

Ally started to laugh, and couldn't stop. "Take me to bed," she said, and Colin did. 

_Epilogue_

"I don't think your mom thinks I'm a good choice for godparent," Colin said, as he and Ally tried to throw mini cheese pinwheels into each other's mouths across the table. 

"She barely thinks I'm a good choice for godparent, and I'm her daughter." She scored a direct hit, and punched the air. "Daisy thinks we're good choices, though." 

She hadn't actually expected Daisy to ask her to be godparent to her tiny daughter, but it had been the first thing Daisy had said to her when Ally had turned up at the hospital, weighed down by balloons and gifts to congratulate Daisy and Eddie. "Her name is Natalie," Daisy had said. "Be her godmother?"

Ally had had to say yes. She hadn't exactly expected them to ask Colin too, but over the past few months they'd all become friends, and she liked that other people recognized that Colin was pretty awesome too. Who knew what they were actually going to teach Natalie when she grew up—wrestling rules, maybe, or how to make breakfast foods for every meal. They'd think of something. They had time. 

"Dance with me," Colin said. 

"Okay," Ally said, and held out her hand. 

[End]


End file.
